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ISBUC'd 

United States Department of Agriculture^ 

DEPARTMENT CIRCULAR 182. 



Contribution from the Office of the Solicitor, 

ROBERT W. WILUAMS, Scrficitor. 



THE MIGRATORY BIRD TREATY ACT. 

Extract from Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury in the District Court of 
the United States for the Middle District of Alabama at Opelika, April 4, 
1921, by Hon. HENRY D. CLAYTON, United States District Judge for 
the Northern and Middle Districts of Alabama. 

Gentlemen t)F the grand jury: I call your attention to our 
national mifrratorj- bird law. I do this for the purpose of asking you 
to examine into any infractions of this law; and also for the pur- 
pose of directing public attention, as far as I can. to this important 
subject, to the end that uninformed sportsmen may not violate the 
law and to warn those who are not sportsmen that they must not 
violate the law. Besides. I ask that when you return to your homes 
and mingle again with your neighbors and their bright boys and 
pretty girls you talk at every convenient opportunity on this subject. 
I want all of our boys and girls to become more familiar with our 
birds: their usefulness, their beauty, and the music of these choristers 
of our fields and Avoods. There will be less robbing of birds' nests 
and there will be less destruction of the useful and beautiful birds. 

It is a matter of history that the people and the authorities of the 
Dominion of Canada complained of the Avanton destruction of wild 
birds hatched and raised in Canada and afterwards migrating into 
the United States. This was especially true of the ducks, geese, and 
brant. So our Government negotiated a treaty with Great Britain 
and Canada for the purpose of affording reasonable protection to 
migratory birds. Congress has passed a penal statute on the subject, 
and has authorized the President and his subordinates to formulate 
and proclaim rules and regulations in regard to wild birds of migra- 
tory habits. 

fiecently in Alabama some of our sportsmen have discussed in the 
public prints the question whether or not the doA^e. the mourning 
dove — sometimes called the turtle dove — is a migratory bird. The 
question is not debatable. Congress has declared the dove to be 
migratory and within the protection afforded by the national migra- 
tory bird law. Of course, many doves are hatched and raised here, 

54223—21 



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2 THE MIGRATORY BIRD TRl 

but that does not refute the legal ascertainment that the dove is a 
migratory bird. As a matter of law the dove is migratory, for the 
act of Congress and the rules and regulations made in pursuance 
thereof declare it to be such. That fact is just as well settled as the 
fact that Choctawhatchee River at Bellwood in Geneva County in 
this State is a navigable stream, for the act of Congress declares it 
to be navigable, although in dry weather an athletic young man can 
almost jump across the stream at that point. When I was your 
Representative in Congress it became my duty to have a special act 
passed, authorizing the railroad company to build a bridge across 
that stream there, because Congress had declared it to be a navigable 
stream, and no bridge could be built across it without congressional 
permission. 

Provisions in the migratory bird law afford protection during cer- 
tain seasons, which the law and regulations mention specifically, 
against the killing or capturing of the numerous families of migra- 
tory birds, including swans, ducks, geese, cranes, rails, plovers, snipe, 
curlew, woodcock and others, some of which, we, in this section, never 
see and know but little about, as they never come inland but frequent 
the seashores and tidal marshes. As a general rule there is no open 
season for insectivorous birds, and it is a violation of law to kill or 
capture these at any season. Among the birds thus protected I may 
mention the flicker, commonly called the yellowhammer, wood- 
peckers, robins, bee martins, and others, including bull bats. Now 
let me say a good word for the bull bat. The ornithologists tell us 
that it is entirely insectivorous and my observation confirms me in 
the belief that this is so. This bird is harmless and yet verj^ useful. 
It feeds altogether on flies, gnats, mosquitoes and other insect pests. 
Reed birds or rice birds, and as we sometimes speak of them, black- 
birds, including the large blue-blackbird, are at all times protected 
against destruction, except in a limited number of rice-growing 
•i^tates where the rice bird or blackbird harms crops. There the 
iarmer is permitted to prevent destruction of crops by them. The 
immunity of this bird under the law ought to be relaxed here in 
Alabama, for we often see, in the grain-sowing season in the fall and 
in tiie early spring, these birds feeding in our fields on the grain — 
wheat, oats, and rye — which the farmer has not sufficiently covered 
in planting, and in the spring time feeding on this grain when in the 
dough state. I commend our United States district attorney for hav- 
ing called the attention of the authorities at Washington to this fact, 
and I hope proper relief may be afforded to our fanners against the 
depredations committed by these visiting birds. Every man who 
loves the sport of shooting should send a request to the United States 
Department of Agriculture and ask for Bulletin 1138 vv^hich contains 
the game laws. State and Federal. It will cost only the postage on 
his letter or card. 

My love of birds is my excuse for trespassing further on your 
time. You will agree with me that it is a crime to kill a mocldng 
bird. Here in south Alabama they sing for us in all seasons. You 
and I have heard them even on a moonlit night in December, singing 
as if they would infuse some of the joy of their little hearts into 
human souls. Who is it that begrudges the few strawberries, rasp- 
berries, or cherries that they eat. They more than pay for these 



THE MIGRATORY BIRD TREATY ACT. 3 

small contributions to their board with music and by the destruction 
of insects. 

I am jjjlad that the sportsmen of Alabama have long since outlawed 
tiie trapshootin^r of live i)ioo()ns. Ilov. Luther L. Hill, the father 
of that distinguished surgeon, Dr. L. L, Hill, and Hon. A¥illiam W. 
Hill, and tlie other fine sons, delivered a sermon some years ago at 
Snowdoun, in Montgomery County, against the trapshooting of 
pigeons. It broke up that cruel spoit in that county and in the 
State. I wish e^ery man and woman in Alabama could read that 
sermon. I have rea<l and reread it with great pleasure and profit. 

Let me say another thing. Under the administration of Mr. Wal- 
lace, our commissioner of conservation, pothunting has been broken 
up in Alabama, and we now have more bob whites than ever before. 
However, I am sorry to say that we still have with us some game 
hogs; that is, huntsmen so greedy that they kill more birds than the 
law allows. These '* hogs " delight in exceeding the legal limit. 
They give no consideration to leaving some birds in the fields and 
coverts in order that birds may be propagated the next year. Some 
use the automatic repeating and the pump gims. I wish it were un- 
lawful in Alabama for any man to carry, own, or use such a gun. 
Two shots at a covy on the rise ought to be enough, and the second 
shot at any single bird is more than enough. The sportsman always 
plays a fair game. Give the birds a fair chance and we will have 
more birds next year. 

Under this migratoi-;^^ bird law an}^ employee of the Department 
of Agriculture is authorized by law and by the Secretary' of Agri- 
culture to enforce its provisions and has power to arrest without a 
■warrant any person committing a violation of the act in his pres- 
ence or view and to take the offender before a trial officer or court. 
Let me emphasize the fact that it is the intention of Congress and 
the courts to have this law enforced * * *. 



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